


Iron and Blood

by Fyre



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Bestiality, Character Death, Child Abuse, Darkfic, F/M, Forced Pregnancy, Friendship, Horror, Murder, Original Character(s), Other, Rape, Rape Aftermath, Sexual Violence, Teen Pregnancy, Violence, Werewolves, cremation, cross-species, emolation, human remains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-18
Updated: 2012-03-18
Packaged: 2017-11-02 04:02:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/364761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I was a child - he marked me that night, then came back, found me, turned me"</p><p>This is the story of the little girl and what happened after she met the big, bad wolf.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Iron and Blood

**Author's Note:**

> This story got inside my head and made sure it was getting out and fast. It took me 3 days. I think it's one of the best character-driven pieces I have ever written. It has also taken my heart and torn it into shreds. I've run out of tissues more times than I can count. I feel I have spent the whole weekend crying. But I am pleased with the result, if exhausted and amazed that something like this could come out of my head.
> 
> Also, the Big Bad Wolf is based on the stories of the Iron Wolf, from eastern European folklore. He has backstory, but right now, you don't need to know that.

The ice on her boots was red.

There was blood everywhere: her hair, her eyes, her skin. Some of it was hers. Some was the wolf's. Some was papa's. It was like metal in her mouth. It was the only thing she could smell. She had been sick over and over, but all that remained was the taste of bitter copper.

She should have cried. 

Any child would have.

There was pain and terror and grief, but no tears came even when she picked her way through the blood-splattered snow. She tried to dig, using Fritz's shovel to crack, crack, crack at the ice. They had to be buried. It was right, it was proper. She struck the ground again and again, but it was cold and hard, and they were freezing like broken statues, all around her.

Annetta stood silent for a time, her hands sticky with her own blood.

If the earth wouldn't claim them, then there were the old stories of giving them to the fire.

She dragged them together. It was easier now than it would have been. If they had all been in one piece, she knew she couldn't have moved them. They would have been too big, too heavy, but now, there were limbs and hands and trailing parts that should have been inside, all scattered.

The faces were the hardest. They still looked like papa and her brothers, but scared and glass-eyed and mouths open in screams that would never stop ringing in her head. She cradled each one, as if they might know it was her, and carried them to the pile. Their eyes wouldn't shut, frozen open and staring.

Papa was last, closest to the house, where he had been trying to keep her safe.

It had carved him open like a lamb. She could count his ribs, pale in the redness. When she fell from the roof, his open body cushioned the fall. The sound of it, as much as the sound of his flesh ripping, would never leave her.

Her small hands tugged and pulled him until he rested with her brothers. It looked like the butcher's stall at market, but the flesh and clothing made it so much worse. She tucked papa's coat around his torn ribs, as if it could make things better, and kissed his freezing cheek.

She knew why they had done it, and she knew that if she had gone, they would still be alive.

Only days before, Papa took shelter in a storm in the house of a great and terrible man. The price had been the first thing to greet him on his return. On any other day, the house would have been empty, but papa was not to know that Annetta was laid low with a fever, and she peeped out of the door, the first thing he saw.

The great and terrible man had proven much more terrible than papa had ever realised. He came to claim his price, and when it was denied, he promised vengeance on the night of the full moon.

Annetta's arms and legs were aching with cold and pain, but she carried firewood from the woodpile to arrange around the ruins of her family. Ernst taught her how to lay a fire when she was barely old enough to walk, and she knew it well: small kindling, then the larger wood built upon it. 

The sky was growing lighter by the time it was done, and when she put the shivering flame to the straw tucked between the wood, she couldn't be sure that the fire had taken at first. She held it there, held it until she could hear the crackle and snap, and see the tongues of fire dancing and twisting between the logs.

She upturned the bucket she used to fetch water and sat, shivering, watching as the flames took hold. No one came. No one ever came to a woodcutter's cottage. They waited for wood to be brought to them. No one cared about a woodcutter and his family.

The smell was bearable at first, but as the bodies were caught up with the wood, it became terrible. If she had anything left in her, she would have brought it up, but she was spent and empty of any sustenance, any emotion, any life. 

It burned on and on for hours, everything that was important to her being reduced to ash before her eyes. The heat made her face prickle and ache. She folded her hands together, fingers squeezing so tightly that it felt like they might crack.

She was still sitting there when the night crept on her, the flames low now, but still flickering.

She heard the crunch of someone approaching across the snow, but it made no difference to her anymore. She heard the growl, and knew he had returned. She didn't move, didn't turn, didn't breathe. He should have torn her apart. It would have been better.

He didn't.

He circled around her, eyes gleaming in the moonlight, but she refused to turn her head, look away. Her eyes stayed fixed on the fire, as it burned lower and lower. He had already taken everything. There was nothing more he could take.

She could feel his breath, the wetness of his muzzle, when he put his vast and terrible head down to hers. His tongue uncurled like a snake, and slid along the bite, his mark, on her arm. It was crusted with blood, aching unbearably. He bared his fangs, as if he was pleased, and the hollowness inside her suddenly filled up with fury.

She had no weapon, no tool, no spear. Nothing that a hunter would use. All she had were her shaking hands, and she flew at him, tearing at his hideous face, clawing at his eyes, hitting him as hard as she could with limbs that felt frozen to the bone.

The wolf made a sound unlike any animal. It could only be a human laugh escaping an inhuman throat, and that made her all the more angry. She ripped at his face, tearing clumps of fur, and he watched her, and the gleam in his eyes made her scream and swear with all the words papa and her brothers told her not to use.

Her voice was raw and ragged when he tired of her assaults. 

A paw as vast as a plate slammed down on her chest, forcing her to the ground. The long claws cut through her clothing, into her chest, enough to draw blood, and the breath was crushed from her lungs. She beat at his leg, struggling, but it would have been easier to fight against a rock.

His paw dragged downwards, shredding her clothing and leaving bloodied stripes in her flesh, and the iciness of the air cut into her like new-sharpened knives, any breath she had left escaping in a gasp.

Gleaming eyes surveyed her, and she felt the heat of his breath, as he lowered his head and sniffed at her. She knew she couldn't fight him, and whatever he wanted, he had the strength to do. She stared defiantly at him, and curled her hands into trembling fists at her side.

She wasn't afraid of him, not anymore. Not even when he flipped her onto her belly. Not even when he tore away the remains of her clothing with claws and teeth. Not even when his hideous, vicious body mounted her like she was the same kind of beast as him.

She wouldn't cry, not for what he had done to them, nor for what he was doing to her. 

She pressed her forehead to her clenched fists, and she closed her eyes, and she gathered the hatred around her like a cloak.

 

______________________________________

 

 

It was nearly a week since the last delivery of wood.

Simon was concerned, though his father saw no reason to be. Woodsmen kept to their own calendar, delivering the wood when enough trees were felled. When the eighth day passed, and the forge's woodpile was beginning to run low, his father changed his tune.

Normally, there was a delivery of wood once every third or fourth day.

Simon offered to seek out the woodsman and his sons, to find out if there was something ailing them. He was sure that if one of them was ill or injured, they would have ventured to the village to seek help. If none of them were capable of calling in for aid, then it had to be something serious.

It was a fair walk. The woodsman and his family lived in the deepest parts of the woods, and he was grateful that the weather was turning. It was still icy cold, but the thaw was coming, and he could hear the patter of frost melting onto the snow. The promise of spring was beginning to show its face.

He was still some way away when he heard the sound of an axe striking wood. That was a good sign, at least.

By the time he reached the clearing where the cottage stood, the sun was high, and he had loosened his scarf. He was halfway across the clearing before something on the ground caught his eyes. The snow wasn't white, of even just dirty. There were patches of dark red, splatters. There was also a wide spread of ash and burnt wood.

Simon stared at it apprehensively. He could see shapes that almost looked like ribs among the blackened wood, and a fire that big wasn't one used for cooking a meal.

He approached the cottage, and saw the door scored by marks that looked like claws. He felt sick. Something had happened, something terrible. He pushed the door open a crack. He was both shocked and relieved that the inside of the house seemed completely untouched. 

"Hello?" he called, leaning in. There was no response, so he ventured in. It was warm, and he touched the metal stove. The traces of heat still lingered in the metal, so someone had been here some time earlier in the day. Possibly the mysterious woodcutter in the forest?

He checked each room of the small house and found no one, though all the clothing, food and possessions were there, simply waiting for their owners. It was unsettling.

Simon retreated back outside, drawing the door closed. He called out to the woods, to whomever might be there. If the family had moved on, he wanted to know. His eyes kept drifting back to the patch of ash-strewn ground. He could have moved closer to look, but something about it made his stomach turn and he sat on the step, waited.

It was some time before he heard the crack of twigs. He rose at once, the silence of the place putting his nerves on edge, and looked around. On the very edge of the clearing, there was a small figure, hidden in the shadows of the trees.

"Hello?"

The figure moved cautiously into the light, and he recognised her at once. It was the woodsman's daughter. She was several years younger than him and half the size of her strapping fleet of brothers. In the stillness and silence of the place, she seemed even smaller. She was wearing a coat far too large for her, and she was holding an axe in her hands.

"Annetta?"

She nodded haltingly, holding the axe in both hands in front of her like a shield. "What do you want?" she asked. Her voice was rasping, as if she hadn't spoken in some time. 

"We were running low on wood at the forge," Simon said apologetically. "I thought I would come and see if everything was all right." He didn't need to ask to see that things were far from all right. The girl looked as if she was ready to run. He took a step towards her and she shied back, staring at him like a hunted animal. "Annetta?"

"Papa is gone. I was fetching wood." The words came out slowly, as if she was having trouble putting them together. "The trees are too big for me."

"Annetta, what happened?"

She stared at him uncomprehendingly. "Papa is gone. And Fritz and Ernst and everyone. I try to cut trees but they are too big."

He took another step towards her, but stopped dead when she shrank back. He hesitated, then he opened his knapsack, taking out some bread wrapped in a cloth. "Are you hungry?" he offered. "I have bread and meat. We could sit and eat."

"Sit and eat?"

He nodded. "It's cold. You must be cold. We can sit inside."

She stared at him blankly for a long time, then nodded. She walked across the clearing slowly, and he could see that she was limping. She moved as if she was in a lot of pain, but was trying not to show it.

At the door, she stepped out of her boots and across the threshold, then knocked the snow from them. She looked at him expectantly, still clutching the axe against her chest. He followed her lead, removing his boots and entering the house.

Annetta padded around in just her stockinged feet, shedding her coat and woollen hat, but he noticed that she always kept the axe in one hand. She didn't give the impression that it was because she was afraid of him. It felt like she wanted it to hand, in case she needed to hit something with it.

He withdrew what food he had out of his knapsack, and she nodded to the plates on one of the shelves. He split it evenly between them, then drew back one of the seats by the fireplace.

"Don't!" Annetta's voice broke the stillness as if it were glass.

Simon lifted his hand from the chair, looking at her with concern.

"Papa's chair," she whispered, her lips trembling. "That's papa's chair."

He nodded at once. "Where shall I sit?" he offered.

She pointed to the thick hearth rug. Her hand was shaking, and he wondered desperately what had happened to her, to her family. He knelt down on the rug and set the plates down as well, and was unsurprised when she curled up in her father's chair, pulling her legs up onto the seat.

"Here," he said quietly, offering her one of the plates.

She gazed at him blankly for a moment, then took it. "Thank you," she said carefully.

He offered a small smile, which she ignored, staring at him as she silently tore the bread and meat into small pieces. Every so often, she would put a piece in her mouth, chew, swallow, but her eyes never left his face, as if she was waiting for something.

Simon ate his own meal mechanically, even though it felt like he had a rock in his belly. He finally set the plate down on the floor, empty, and looked up at her. "What happened to your papa?" he asked quietly. "Your brothers?"

Annetta stared at him in silence for a long while, then looked down at her plate. "A bad man came," she said in a hoarse whisper. Her voice was trembling.

He didn’t want to ask, but he knew he had to. “Where are they?”

She tugged at a piece of bread, her hands shaking, and her eyes remained fixed on them. “I couldn’t break the ground to put them in,” she whispered. “It was too hard. I put them together again and they burnt up.”

Simon thought he might be sick. He swallowed hard. “Outside?”

She nodded.

He remembered the glimpses of bones amid the ashes, the remains of her family. He could see it so clearly, the tiny, frightened girl trying to bury her dead with no one to help her in a world frozen solid by winter.

“Do you want me to help?” he asked quietly. “I can dig the ground for you, and we can lay what remains to rest.”

She stared at him, suspicious. “Why?”

“They were your family,” he replied quietly. “They were good people.”

She put her plate to one side, less than half of the food consumed, and got up. “Now,” she said with quiet determination.

After the quiet warmth of the house, outside was even more bitingly cold, and now he knew the truth of what had happened, Simon wished he hadn’t eaten. Annetta carried her axe as she led him back out, and she watched him quietly when he turned away and was sick in a drift of snow. She didn’t say anything.

There was a shovel lying in the snow, and he picked it up. Where the pyre had burned, the ground was softer, and though she whimpered faintly when he stepped among the ashes, she didn’t stop him as the shovel bit into the earth beneath.

He worked until his hands were blistered, breaking apart the solid earth, until there was a pit big enough for the scattered remains. He climbed out of the hole and looked at Annetta, who had barely moved since he started digging. 

“Shall I…?” he asked quietly.

She shook her head and put down her axe. She moved like an old woman at the grave of her children, as she gathered the burnt bones and laid them down into the pit. He tried not to look, but he saw one cracked, heat-distorted skull and the remains of a spine in her small hands, conveyed from ash to dirt. He turned away, walked a short distance, and was sick again.

It took her a long time, and he couldn’t stand watching her sift through the ashes with her bare hands. Instead, he gathered some wood for her, knowing she would be frozen to the bone by the time she was done, and he went into the house to rebuild the fire.

When she was done, he took up the shovel again and filled in the pit, while she stood by silently, the axe in her hands once more.

She didn’t say a word until they were back in the cottage. She scrubbed the ash and dirt from her hands and looked at him. “You need to go.”

“I can’t leave you here,” he protested. “You should come back to the village with me. We have plenty of room, and you wouldn’t be alone.”

She looked at him blankly, as if she couldn’t understand what he was saying. “You need to go,” she repeated. “If you’re still here when the sun goes…” She fell silent.

Simon felt like something unpleasant twisted inside him. “He comes back?” 

The man, whoever he was, had killed her family, and the only woman, no only girl, in the house was the only one to survive? Simon didn’t have to have an imagination to guess what use she might be put to by someone so cruel.

Annetta didn’t move, barely seemed to breathe. “You need to go,” she finally said. He looked at her hands at the handle of her axe. Her knuckles were so white and sharp, he was amazed they weren’t breaking through the skin.

“Annetta,” he implored, crossing the floor to grasp her shoulders. “You can’t stay here. Please, come home. It’ll be safe!”

She looked at one of his hands, then the other, then up at his face. “Papa broke a promise,” she whispered, and he saw her eyes were filling with tears. “Papa was meant to send me to him. But he wouldn’t let him take me. And now, all my brothers and my papa are ash and bone and he comes for me whenever he wants.” She gave a small, sharp sob, like an animal in pain. “I don’t want anyone else to die.”

“Netta…”

Tears rolled down her cheeks, and she hugged the axe to her chest. “Please don’t tell,” she whispered. “Please. He’ll make them all to bits if they tried to stop him.”

Simon could see his baby sister in her face, and he gently pulled the axe from her hands, before wrapping her in his arms. She shuddered violently, rigid, then her arms wrapped around him and she sobbed for her world that had been torn apart.

She wept for a long time, as if it had all be bottled away from the moment her family died, and Simon rocked her and murmured, and tried to find something to say that would be helpful in any way. There was nothing he could think of. Nothing that would help.

Finally, she withdrew from his arms and got to her feet.

“You need to go,” she said again, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. “Please.”

“Netta…”

“If you’re here, he’ll make you in bits,” she whispered. “If I’m not here, he’ll find me and make everyone around me in bits.” She took a deep breath. “Please go home.”

He wanted to protest, wanted to drag her, but if one man had torn apart her family, he must have been terrible indeed. The woodsman and his sons were some of the strongest, biggest men Simon had ever seen, and if they were all defeated, together…

He felt like a coward, to abandon her.

“I’ll come back,” he said. “Every week.. I’ll bring you food. Anything you need.”

She almost looked like she smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes, and she nodded. Then she stepped around him and vanished deeper into the house and closed a door. Simon stared after her for a long time, then pulled on his boots and coat and set out for home.

 

_________________________________________

 

Annetta could remember a day, once, when she was happy.

It felt like it was a lifetime ago, but it could only have been weeks or months. It was before death and blood and pain became part of a cycle that seemed to go on and on without end. 

Sometimes, he came on the full moon night, when he was a monster. Sometimes, he came as a man, pretending kindness, bringing her candies and clothing, and then hurting her in ways she had never thought possible. It was always at night, with the darkness, and she came to dread sunset. She couldn’t lock him out, because that only made him angrier, and when he was angry, it hurt so much that she could barely move for days.

She tried all she could to kill him: poison in his food, smothering, a rope around his neck, a blade in his chest, but nothing seemed to work. Sometimes, he laughed at her attempts, and other times, he left her abandoned like laundry, blood-stained and sprawling.

The only brightness she had left was the visits made by Simon, the smith’s son. He would sharpen her axe for her, help her fetch in wood, even bring her food and clothing. She never used the objects brought by the man who hurt her. Anything he gave her was burned the next day, then poured down the privy.

Simon was the one who found her on the day when everything changed.

She had been feeling bad for a few days, and her stomach had hurt, but when the full moon came, for once, her enemy and master didn’t come to her. Or if he did, he didn’t find her, because morning found her in the forest, away from the cottage. There were carcasses scattered around her, small animals, and she found fur in her teeth.

Hours later, Simon found her stumbling and naked in the woods, trying to find her way home. He dressed her in his coat and carried her almost all the way, and she tried in terror to remember what had happened the previous evening.

“Did you leave here yourself?” Simon asked, stoking the fire.

She shook her head. If she did, she couldn’t remember. She could remember fetching water, and looking up at the sky to see the moon rising. She remembered that much because she remembered the trepidation that he might be coming soon.

Simon crouched beside her chair and touched her brow. “You’re burning,” he said quietly. “I think you must have a fever. Maybe you wandered out in a delirium?”

“Don’t know,” she whispered, shivering. 

“I’m staying,” he told her quietly.

“No!”

He gently caught her shoulders. “If he comes, he comes,” he said. “I’ve left you here alone long enough.”

She protested, struggled, struck out at him, but he was adamant. He even made soup, and carried her to bed, no matter how much she kicked and fought. He was right, though. She was exhausted, and her body was doing all kinds of strange things, hot and cold, light-headed, aching in the belly.

There was still the fear, though.

If Simon was obviously present when he arrived, she knew Simon would be in trouble. So, as long as she wasn’t in the house, and he was locked in safe…

She let him feed her, and tend her, and was the perfect little bed-ridden patient until the sun started to sink. She feigned weakness, asked Simon to fetch her a drink, and while he was distracted, reached for the heavy candlestick beside the bed. She hit him neatly and he folded like damp cloth.

She was standing outside on the step when she heard the door rattling, but she had locked it securely, and barred all the windows. If Simon was to be kept safe, she was ready and willing to face her enemy to make it so.

She lifted her head to the sky. The moon was rising. The skin on the back of her neck rose and she shivered, and knew he was on his way.

Simon beat on the door desperately, but she ignored him, stepping down onto the grass. She saw the first curve of the moon.

The next she knew was daylight, warming her. She was lying on the grass of the clearing, and there was blood and fur scattered here and there, as well as pieces of her nightdress. She struggled to her knees, then her feet, and looked around, disorientated. She managed to walk to the cottage, frowning in confusion when the door wouldn’t open. Memories filtered back of the key and bolts, and she searched the ground.

It took some time until her hands were coordinated enough to slide the bolts free, and when she pushed the door open, it knocked against Simon, sprawled on the floor.

Annetta gave a sharp cry, kneeling to shake him, and his eyes flew open. He scrambled back from her, staring wildly, and she was both relieved that he was unharmed and bewildered by the look of terror on his face. 

“I saw!” he gasped, staring at her. “Netta, what the hell are you?”

She stared at him in consternation. “I’m me.”

He shook his head, trembling. “I saw you,” he said. “The moon rose and you turned into a wolf.”

Annetta sat back on her bare heels, her hands falling to rest on her thighs. “What?” she asked in a whisper.

“You changed,” he said. “And there was another wolf. Bigger. You fought him. He… you didn’t win… he…” He trailed off, looking sickened.

She closed her eyes, knowing exactly what her loathed enemy did. It explained the fresh aches and pains. At least that bit, she was familiar with. “I don’t understand,” she said. “I don’t turn into a wolf. I’m always me.”

Simon shuddered. “You weren’t. I saw it happen.”

She lowered her eyes, anything to avoid the horror and revulsion on Simon’s face. Her eyes fell on the scars on her forearm, from so many months ago. She touched them, remembered stories of cursed men who could pass their curse on through their bite. He always said she was going to be his forever.

“I was a wolf?” she asked, her voice quivering.

“Netta, who was he?”

She lifted her head and looked him in the face. “He’s a monster,” she said quietly. “And he’s made me into a monster too.”

Simon stared at her. He was afraid, and she wasn’t surprised. She struggled back to her feet and limped over to the fire. 

There was a blanket on one of the chairs, so she wrapped herself in it and folded up into her papa’s seat. Everything hurt more now. It was bad enough that he had to see what the man did to her, but to know what she became, the same kind of thing that slaughtered her family. She stifled a whimper, hugging her knees and burying her face in them. 

It felt useless to cry again, but her eyes were burning and she rocked and shuddered with the force of her grief. 

Better to have been dead.

She flinched when a hand touched the top of her head, looking up wildly.

“Netta,” Simon whispered. He still looked afraid. It was strange, but she was almost sure she could smell the fear as well. “You’re not a monster.”

“Then why are you afraid of me?”

Simon looked at her, then slowly, he knelt down in front of her chair and offered her his arms. She leaned into them and rested her forehead on his shoulder. He was warm, even though he was trembling. “I’m sorry.”

She touched one of his buttons, rolling it between her fingers. “Why?”

“I know you, Netta,” he said, his hand on the back of her head, smoothing her hair. “I know you’re not a monster. But I’ve never seen anything like that before. A wolf so big. And he was even bigger.”

“It’s good I live here,” she said quietly. “I won’t hurt anyone. He won’t either.”

Simon tensed and she raised her head to look at him. “No one except you.”

She smiled, almost, brief and tired. “I don’t matter.”

He hugged her them, properly, not as if she were fragile and breakable, and for a moment, she could pretend she was back in her papa’s big, warm arms. “You do matter,” he said with a ferocity that surprised her. “We’ll find a way to kill him, so he can’t hurt you again.”

Annetta tugged on his button. “He can’t be killed,” she whispered. “I’ve tried.”

“Everything can be killed,” Simon said. “You just need to find the weakness.”

Annetta laid her head on his shoulder again. “A weakness,” she echoed. “Find a weakness.” 

She had time, and she had patience, and more than anything, she had that hatred that beat in her chest as strongly as her heartbeat.

 

______________________________________

 

Simon visited Annetta regularly.

His father didn’t question it. The story Simon had told was that a sickness had wiped out the whole family, and the girl couldn’t bear to leave her family home. It was close enough to the truth for it to stand up to scrutiny, but enough of a lie that no one would go to find the girl for fear of contagion.

A few eyebrows were raised when Simon started working on objects in the forge: metal grids, heavy latches for shutters, something that looked like it could be a part of a cage. He said innocently that it was to protect the girl’s house from bandits. After all, she was their only woodcutter now.

His father, he knew, was sure he was courting the girl, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth.

Annetta was comely enough, but grief and torment had left its mark on her as clearly as the bite on her arm. She could never - and probably would never - be able to consider herself as anything more than broken, and even if he wanted to, she still flinched from his touch, as if expecting violence and abuse.

That wasn’t to say he didn’t care.

He did.

Something about the girl reminded him of his own infant sister, even though Annetta was much quieter, solemn and so very still by comparison. He thought it might be her eyes. His sister looked much like that after a nightmare, fragile and frightened, but determined not to let anyone know it.

So he visited her, and took metalwork and food and anything else she might need.

Her determination to slay the beast that killed her family had only grown, and in recent weeks, he had come to understand why. 

One day, when they had been working on repairing the neglected upper room, she had winced and laid her hand on her stomach. Her oversized shirt curved over a swell that hadn’t been there before. He pretended not to notice, but had to step outside to get some air, his head spinning with shock.

She was so small, still barely a teenager, and now, by some sadistic sorcerer’s games, her thin little body was carrying another inside it. And what made it worse was the horror of the consideration that it might not even be a child at all. 

He didn’t know if she knew or understood what was happening to her, and he knew he was a coward to ignore it, but he couldn’t face asking and then having to explain to her.

Instead, he put his body and soul into their plan. It was hard work, but it was the only way they could think of. As strong as the wolf was, they were both hoping and praying that he wouldn’t be stronger than iron.

Annetta spoke less and less with each visit. Something dangerous and intense was burning behind her eyes, and he knew that in the end, either her enemy would be slain or she would be, and he was afraid he knew who would fall.

It made him all the more determined to help her.

The only thing they had in their favour was Annetta’s sudden and surprising aversion to silver. She warily admitted to him that when she touched the old silver candlesticks now, they made her head spin, and she wondered if perhaps it was the wolf side which was responding to them. It was a futile hope, but he agreed it could be so.

She crouched by the fire by his side, watching as he melted down one of the candlesticks, her eyes fixed on the liquid metal. 

Weeks earlier, he had given her a crossbow, which had proved useless against the man-monster who assaulted her, but now, he took each of the bolts of the bow and dipped the metal tips into the silver, coating them thickly. It wouldn’t make the crossbow any more accurate, but if he knew Annetta, it wouldn’t be a distance shot. He would be unsurprised if the bolt didn’t go straight through the man’s eye at point blank range.

“Do you think it will be enough?” he asked, as he slipped the bolts back into the quiver, once the metal had cooled.

She shrugged, rocking on her toes. “Have to try.” She glanced towards the narrow, rickety staircase up to the upper room. “He’s never come into the house before.” She took a shivering breath. “I need to be ready.”

“When?”

She shrugged again, straightening up. She vanished up the stairs with the crossbow and bolts, and returned moments later, empty-handed.

“Do you think he’ll suspect a trap?”

Annetta’s lips turned up in an expression that wasn’t a smile. “Probably,” she said. “He’ll still come.” She walked in a slow circle in the room, then turned to look at him. “I need you to take some things away with you.”

He frowned. “Why?”

“If he comes in here, I don’t want him to touch anything precious,” she said quietly, simply. “I want you to look after the best things of my family. I don’t want him to have them if it all goes wrong.”

He wanted to protest, to assure her she would be fine, but both of them knew that lie was just too big.

“Pack it up for me,” he said softly.

 

_______________________________________

 

 

Annetta was bleeding again.

For once, though, she was inside the house, lying on a bed that had not been used for many months. The trap had been laid open, and she was the bait. The front door of the house was left ajar, as if he was expected, and she arranged herself on the bed as if she were asleep, half-hidden by the sheepskins covering the end of the bed.

She was both exultant and furious that he dared to enter.

It was her place, and her home, and he had no right to take that from her.

She feigned waking and shock at the sight of him, even though she had smelled him the moment he was within a hundred paces of the house, and scrambled back across the bed. He seemed pleased. If he had been a normal man, people might have considered him handsome in a cruel, sharp-featured way, but all she could see was the blood and the fangs that he wore when the moon was upon them.

“Please. Please, not here.” 

They were just words, but the emotion behind them was real enough. This place, her home, was hers. To let him in would have made him suspicious, but to resist, to beg, to fight it, so that he would act as he always did and be made vulnerable by lust was the only way. He was always so lazy and self-satisfied after he took what he wanted.

He caught her easily - if he had paused to think, he might have realised just how easy it was, when she normally fled and slipped through his fingers like water - and put her facedown on the bed, his hand on the back of her head.

She could barely breathe, and when he took her, it was vicious enough that she wished she could scream. His hands were cruel, holding her still, and she thrashed and whimpered, and then he took her again, another way, more painful, more shameful. 

By the time he was done, she was soaked in sweat and smeared with blood. The bedding was damp with vomit and saliva, and she was flinching with pain. What made it worse was the hand that moved to caress her swollen belly, possessive and greedy.

“All mine, little girl,” he murmured. “And when it comes, I’ll eat it all up.”

Annetta struggled away, rolling off the bed and landing heavily on her knees. She wanted to be sick again, but she forced herself to her feet, stumbling against the wall. His laughter followed her, and she heard his feet touch the floor as he rose from the bed. 

The room was swimming around her, as if she was seeing everything through mottled glass, and she staggered towards the doorway. If she could only get there, then she would have a moment, a chance, and it might just work.

He always let her run. He found it amusing to chase her, hunt her, and just when she thought she might be free, capture her. That was his biggest weakness. He liked to toy and play, and her heart was thundering in the hopes that the same rules applied indoors.

The threshold was beneath her feet, and she tried to contain her joy. Not enough, it seemed, and she heard him growl, as if the human throat was designed for such a thing.

She threw herself forward and tugged loose the ropes that Simon had put in place. She heard him curse and scream as a metal gate slammed down, grids and bars, blocking the doorway in narrow vertical strips. Panting, she rolled onto her back and stared at the gate. He was clawing at it, hissing and snarling like a trapped animal, but Simon had been thorough. There were catches and locks and hinges all built into the walls around the room. Even if he broke through them, the bars were oiled, too slick to get purchase on with bare hands.

Annetta got to her feet as quickly as she could and pushed aside a coarse tapestry to pull out the crossbow with its silver-tipped bolts. It made her palms itch even to hold it, but she still gripped it like a lifeline and ventured a step closer to the gate.

She took deep breaths to clear her head, and spoke quietly. “You won’t hurt me again.”

His hands wrapped around the iron and he pulled as if he could tear them apart. “Bars won’t hold me, child,” he snarled, baring his teeth, looking more like a monster. His arm thrust out and he caught her by the throat, squeezing, as if that would frighten her. He wouldn’t kill her, not for this. He might squeeze, but he would keep her alive to punish her. “I’m too strong and your little toy does nothing to me, remember.”

She could barely breathe, barely swallow, barely smile. But she lifted the crossbow mere inches and fired the silver-tipped bolt between the bars and into his belly.

He screamed, hurling himself backwards, and Annetta’s hand moved to automatically replace the bolt with another, and fired. It struck him in the thigh. He tugged at them, tearing them from his flesh, howling and cursing. She fired again. His shoulder this time. 

Even when he pulled them free, he didn’t rise, and that was good. He was weak.

“Bitch!” he moaned, clawing at his wounds.

She put her head on one side, watching him twitch and jerk, as if his limbs were numb. “I am what you made me,” she said quietly, then hurled a lantern into the room. The glass cracked, the oil spilling, and floor caught flame in an instant, thick sheep fat smeared everywhere, the stench explained away by the hides on the bed.

Terror crossed his face and he scrambled back away from the spreading flames.

Annetta wrapped her hands around the bars and laid her forehead against them. It was probably foolish to stay, in a wooden house with a thatch roof, but she knew she had to see it through to the end, to know he wouldn’t come back.

He started to scream as the flames caught him, licking up his legs and body, and he clawed at the walls and the windows. The bars fixed around the room sealed him in, with no way out, and she watched dispassionately as he burned, even as the bars grew hot and her head swam with the smoke. His screams grew louder, more desperate.

She remembered her brothers and papa, all in pieces, all piled high and burning. They were broken and hurt because of him, and now, he was broken and hurt because of them.

She hoped that it was as painful as it looked for him.

 

___________________________________________

 

Simon was sick with dread at what he might find. 

Every time he visited Annetta’s home, the same worry filled him. Sometimes, he found her barely conscious, while others, she was fine. However, every day since they had finished building the trap for her attacker, he was expecting to find her bloody corpse lying on the grass outside the house.

It was a shock, then, to reach the clearing and see her sitting on the front step.

He looked up at the house behind her and swore in shock. The thatch of the house was blackened and still smoking, with beams visible through the remnants. A large part of the roof had burned away, but the rain in the night had prevented the whole house from going up. 

Annetta didn’t seem to notice him at all, staring blankly into nothing. It wasn’t until he got closer that he could see she was only wrapped in a blanket, and that she was covered in dried blood. Her hair was singed and he could see burns on her arms. Her bare feet, blistered and red, were resting in the rain-drenched grass.

He sat down beside her on the step, and for once, she didn’t immediately flinch in surprise.

She turned her head slowly, as if it weighed too much, and blinked bloodshot eyes. She looked like hell, pale and sooty and he could see her lip had been split. There were dark marks around her throat.

Then she surprised him with the first and brightest smile he had ever seen on her face.

It could only mean one thing.

“It… it worked?” he asked in disbelief. “The cage? The silver?”

She nodded, and surprised him again by leaning against him. “And the fire,” she said hoarsely, her voice barely comprehensible. 

“The fire?” Simon echoed blankly. All he could remember in the plan was the cage and hitting him with silver-tipped arrows. He thought the house was burnt by some accident in the struggle.

She nodded again, slowly. “Had to be sure. Turned him to ash.” She made a small, tight sound that might have been a laugh. “He screamed.”

Simon felt bile rise in his throat, but he knew this was her revenge and she had the right to do what was necessary. “So he’s gone? You’re free? You can come to the village now?”

She tilted her head to look at him, her expression as grave as ever. “You know I can’t,” she whispered. “You know what I become. I need to be here. Away from everything.” Her hand patted his arm and he could see the nails were torn, like she had clawed and fought against something and lost. “It’ll be better now.”

“Your house is burned,” he said stupidly, lost for anything else to say.

“Only part of it,” she replied quietly. “When it dries, I’m going to sweep him up and pour him down the privy as well.”

“We could fix it.”

She shook her head. “I want upstairs blocked off,” she said with finality. “I’m never going into that room again, after he’s gone.”

Simon was silent for a moment. He wanted to ask, to know if she was all right, if it had been as terrible as it looked. It was an awful question to ask, and he looked at her uneasily. She may have been years younger, but in experience, she was decades older.

“Don’t worry,” she said quietly and patted his arm again. “I’ll be fine.”

“You… there’s blood.”

She looked down at herself, then back up at him. “There always is,” she murmured, pulling the blanket around her to hide her burnt arms and legs, and the stains he had glimpsed on her bruised thighs. 

He put an arm cautiously around her shoulder, and she didn’t brush him away. “I’ll still visit,” he promised. “Bring you food. Things you need.”

She looked at him with calm, clear eyes. “Do they think you’re trying to win me?” she asked.

He blushed uncomfortably and shrugged. “People talk.”

She smiled a little. “Go and get a wife,” she said. “It’ll stop them talking.”

Simon looked at her, not without sadness. “I could have looked after you,” he said.

“You could have tried,” she said. “I look after myself.” She gave him a small smile. “You helped, but I’m no one’s property. I won’t be anyone’s wife or woman or toy anymore.”

“You’re still young, Netta,” he said quietly.

She shook her head, looking down at the blanket. “I know what I am,” she said. “And I know what people will think.” She slanted a look at him through her dishevelled, smoky, bloody hair. “I’ll be the teenage whore in the woods with her bastard.”

Simon felt like he had been punched in the chest. “You knew?” She nodded. “And you still went through with the plan?”

“It’s why the plan had to work,” she said quietly. “He would have done terrible things to it, just because he could.” She moved one hand under the blanket to pressed against her belly and the creature inside it. “It’s mine. It’s not his.”

“You could have died!”

Annetta’s pale eyes gazed at him. “I didn’t. I’m alive. We’re alive. He’s dust and ash.”

Simon stared at her. “What are you, Netta?” he asked. “Because you’re nothing like anyone I ever met.”

“Then everyone you ever met is lucky,” she said, struggling to her feet. She winced and stepped down onto the grass, dragging her feet through it, leaving dark streaks in the silvery, rain-heavy stalks. She paused a few steps away. “I need you to do something for me.”

“Name it,” he said, getting up.

She turned in a slow circle, the blanket trailing. “I need you to make a cage.”

Simon closed his eyes for a moment. “For you?”

She shook her head. “For the child,” she said quietly. “I don’t know how I would react to it, on the full moon. I need it to be safe. I can’t…” She fell silent, looking at the mound of grass-covered earth only paces away, and he knew what she was thinking about. “It has to be safe.”

“I’ll make something, with room for it to grow,” he agreed.

She smiled at him, and - in spite of the blood, the bruises and the ash - she looked her age for once. “Thank you.”

 

________________________________________

 

Time flew by.

It astonished Annetta how quickly things changed, after she broke free. When she was living at the beck and call of a violent sorcerer, every day was hell, dreading and fearing when his shadow might fall on her.

With him gone, her life was her own. 

Some nights, she spent the whole night in the forest, just because she could. A wolfpack there - true wolves, not twisted monsters like her maker - acknowledged her, even let her sleep among them, without threat or violence, which was a strange and wonderful thing.

She missed people a lot. Her house had always been full of people, of many arms, hugs, and company at all hours of the day and night. Her brothers had comrades in arms, her father his friends from his days in the towns. She missed having someone there to pet her hair or let her sleep beside them.

Simon still visited, though less often since his marriage. He was, thankfully, there when she gave birth. If he hadn’t been, she would have been completely lost. She knew the baby had to come out, but no one ever explained the mechanics. Her brothers usually blushed and told her to find a dog and watch it, because that was just what it was like.

It would have been an unpleasant irony, she had thought as she struggled to squeeze the tiny person out of her body, if she had been in her more lupine form while giving birth.

Her child, her daughter, took up all of her days and nights.

She didn’t know what to call her. For a long time, she just called her ‘small one’, until Simon pointed out that it would be confusing for the girl to grow up with that name, especially when she was growing so fast and looked like she would outstrip her mother. 

Eventually, Annetta settled on the name of Dawn, because it was her favourite time of day, when the wolf in her was vanquished and she didn’t have to be afraid.

She found the infant fascinating. 

At first, the tiny pink creature was all lolling head and whining cries, but little by little, it became more human. Little Dawn learned to sit up, she learned to crawl, she liked some food and disliked other food, she laughed, she complained noisily when she was put into her cage on the nights of the full moon.

Annetta never quite understood what the difference was between the person who gave birth to a child and the person who was a mother. Her own mother died shortly after her birth, and she was all but raised by men. She hoped she was doing it right, feeding and dressing and bathing the child, teaching her what she could, and asking Simon for guidance with what she couldn’t.

His own child came less than a year after Dawn, and he told her all about the little lump of a boy his wife had produced. He never really mentioned his wife, and Annetta never really asked about her. But children, they could talk about. Each new development was a source of delight, and they shared the misgivings, the fears and concerns like any normal parent.

“She doesn’t like the cage,” Annetta admitted one sunny afternoon, as they watched Dawn chasing a butterfly around the clearing. 

“No child would,” Simon said. He was looking a lot older, she thought. He had grown in a beard. Ever since his father had passed away from a winter chill, he had tried to be older, wiser, more serious. The beard was part of the mask. He was still Simon, as she had always known him.

Annetta unpinned her hair to rebraid it and fastened it above the nape of her neck. It was far too warm. “She has to go in it,” she said quietly. “On those nights, I don’t remember anything after I lock the house down. What if I hurt her?”

Simon squeezed her hand. “I know.”

He did as well. He was the only person in the world who knew her and all her secrets.

She looked at his hand, then at him. “Would you watch?” she asked quietly.

“Watch?”

“Come to the house on a full moon? Look through the window and make sure I’m not trying to hurt her?”

Simon looked at her in surprise. “You would want to know?”

She nodded. “I have to,” she said. “I don’t want her to be unhappy. The cage makes her unhappy. If she can be safe outside the cage, then she will be.”

Simon agreed, as she knew he would. They arranged for him to be there fore the moon rose, and she provided him with her crossbow and some of the remaining silver-tipped bolts, just in case something went awry.

“You want me to shoot you?”

“It’ll weaken me enough for you to chain me down,” she said with a rueful smile. “I might try to break out of the house if I see you, and if I do, that’ll be your only choice. Or climbing a tree.”

“Don’t joke about that,” he said, frowning.

She shook her head. “I’m not,” she replied. “Just get a look. We’ll see you in the morning.”

He was still standing there, crossbow in one hand, as she closed the door. The locks and latches he had installed years earlier rattled closed and she checked each of the windows in turn, then began the chore of locking her daughter in her pen.

“I don’t want to! Please, mama! I want to sleep by you!”

Annetta didn’t know what was worse: the tears and screams, or the silent, miserable look of reproach when she closed the cage door and fixed the lock in place. Her daughter had never complained about being scared by a wolf, but then, what child would? She probably thought it was just some nightmare.

She reached through the bars, her hand still thin enough, to touch Dawn’s hair, and she sang a lullaby. The toddler huffed and sniffed, and pulled the blankets over her head, but finally, her breathing evened out.

Annetta curled up on the floor in the living room, wrapped in a blanket. The door to the bedroom was closed, but she never locked it. It was probably a weakness, but if she needed to reach her child, even in wolf form, she wanted to be able to at least be in the same room as her, even if Dawn was protected by a cage.

She felt the first touch of the moonrise and closed her eyes.

The next she knew, she was waking on the floor beside her daughter’s cage, and Dawn was sprawled gracelessly inside, arms and legs in all directions. She unlocked the cage as quietly as she could, then crept to the door and out into the main room.

Simon was already sitting by the fire, the kettle on.

“Well?” she asked, sitting down in the chair that had been her father’s.

He looked at her, and she could see something was making him frown. “You didn’t try to hurt her,” he said, and she felt her shoulders sag in relief. “I think it might be because she was howling as much as you were.”

Annetta froze. “What?”

“She’s like you,” he said. “Smaller, less terrifying, but she turned.”

Annetta’s world felt like it had turned on its axis and she clung to the arms of the chair. “I… she can’t have. Simon, she’s a baby.”

“She turned into a wolf cub,” he said quietly. “I know you don’t want it to be true, but it is.”

She shook her head and her eyes stung. “Not her too,” she whispered. “He did it to me. It didn’t have to happen to her too.”

Simon was kneeling in front of her in an instant, and he pulled her into a tight hug. “Better that she’s with you and you both know,” he said urgently, letting her clutch at him. “You know what you are, how to manage it. You’re the same. You can look after each other.”

Annetta rocked in his arms, trying desperately to keep the tears at bay. Dawn was a monster, just like her. 

“Mama?”

Simon and Annetta pulled apart as if burned.

“Dawn,” Annetta said, wiping her eyes with the heel of her hand. “Did you sleep well?”

The girl shook her head stubbornly. “I don’t like the cage,” she said, sticking out her small, pointed chin. “It makes my sleep bad.”

Simon glanced at Annetta with a sympathetic half-smile, and she rubbed her eyes again.

“You don’t need to sleep in the cage any more,” she said.

Dawn stared at her. “Really?”

Annetta opened her arms. “Really,” she promised. “You can sleep by me all the time.”

Dawn ran across the room and threw herself into her mother’s arms. Annetta buried her face in the girl’s hair, and wished she could scream.

 

_______________________________________

 

Life always came as a surprise to Simon.

In the village, things were simple: women cooked and tended the home, men worked in the fields and the forge, children were children. In the forest, in the clearing, things were so much more complicated.

He had watched Annetta grow from the broken child standing amid the ashes of her family’s bodies into one of the strongest women he had ever seen. She cut wood, felled trees, cooked, mended clothing, ran with wolves, and did it all while raising a half-wolf child.

By comparison, his own life seemed mundane. His children were growing, Robin determined to be big enough to be a smith like his father, while Matilda fiercely guarded the stove, as if it was her territory. His wife had long-since stopped asking about his twice-monthly sojourns into the woods, and he knew there were still rumours that he had a woman out there.

Technically, the rumours were true, but the concept of anyone having Netta was one that made him laugh out loud. Even if she was interested, which she wasn’t, they would have to get past the crossbow first, then the dagger she kept tucked in her corset, as well as the bread knife she frequently carried at her belt. On an especially bad day, she would still have her favourite axe to hand.

All anyone knew was that the woodman’s daughter still lived out there.

Sometimes, young men from the village ventured out to try and find out of the stories were true, but Annetta was too quick for them. She had admitted that she could smell the approach of invaders from up to half a mile away, which was useful, if unsettling. By the time any intruders reached her home, all they would find was the house locked and shuttered and no sign of anyone.

Simon knew Annetta feared for her daughter’s safety, especially with Dawn being so eager and curious to know everything about the world. She asked him so many questions about his village and home that he felt sapped dry, like a sponge wrung of water, but it made her smile, so he was happy to indulge her. 

He had added more security barriers inside the house, metal shutters that barricaded the windows and the fireplaces, heavier bolts and locks for the doors. Dawn stood by in mutinous silence, watching the operation, and he knew why. Like her mother, she hated to be bound by someone else’s decisions, but unlike her mother, she couldn’t grasp the consequences of what might happen.

Annetta kept no secrets from the child, especially as she grew. She told her about her grandfather and her uncles. She showed her the burial ground. She explained simply that they would be seen as monsters and that was why they had to stay well away from people, lest they harm them.

Simon witnessed some of the many arguments. Where Annetta was quiet and solemn, it seemed her daughter had taken much from her father. She blazed with fury, screamed and threw things. She was taller than her mother, though not yet stronger, and had a fierce, primal beauty that Simon was coming to fear.

On one visit, when he came to bring Annetta the good news of his son Robin’s marriage, he found Annetta sitting silently on the doorstep, holding what looked like a bundle of scrap fabric in her hands.

“Netta?”

She looked up at him, bewildered, then offered a tired smile. “Simon.”

All thoughts of his happy news vanished and he sat down beside her. “What happened?”

“There was an argument,” she said quietly, toying with the fabric. Now that he could see it, he recognised the ragged little doll that Annetta had painstakingly made for her daughter, when she was only a few weeks old. It had been torn to pieces.

“Another one?”

Annetta nodded, closing her hands around the pitiful scraps. “She wants to be free to run wild,” she said quietly. “She says wolves are free and people are free, so why do we have to be locked up.”

It was a familiar argument.

Almost as soon as she could talk, Dawn demanded freedom. She hated to be confined, hated restrictions, hated anything that meant she couldn’t do as she pleased. It had only become worse as she grew, and now that Dawn was a grown adult herself, Annetta had never looked so tired.

“Is she inside? I could talk to her again.”

Annetta shook her head. “She ran off,” she said quietly. “I’m giving her some time to cool down, and maybe we can talk.”

Simon scratched his beard pensively. “I could take her to the village,” he offered, “just for a few days. Let her see it’s nothing special. Wolfstime isn’t for another ten nights, and she could be back in time for that.”

“Simon, no,” Annetta said softly. “We have to be the end of this curse. I can’t risk her going out there, meeting someone.” The remainder of the thought went unsaid, but they both knew what she was implying.

He covered her hand with his. Her fingers were cold.

“I can talk to her,” he said. “If you want.”

Annetta looked at him, so tired and fragile for a moment, then nodded.

 

_________________________________________

 

Annetta had hoped Simon’s intervention would help.

He was the one external factor in their life, and she knew that Dawn adored him and listened to everything he said with rapt wonder. He brought them news of the world outside, and that meant he was more precious than gold and jewels to her headstrong daughter.

She was wrong.

It seemed that Dawn’s tolerance for hearing about the world outside was at an end.

For days on end, her daughter would abandon the house and vanish into the depths of the forest. Annetta could track her easily enough, but Dawn was younger and stronger, and as far as Annetta would go to find her, Dawn would run a little faster, climb a little higher, staying out of reach.

Eventually, Annetta retreated to home as Wolfstime neared, stoking the fire and preparing for her daughter’s return. Dawn might be stubborn and defiant, but she knew the dangers of being a wild wolf at the time of the full moon.

When her child finally slunk in, barely hours before sundown, Annetta froze. She knew Dawn’s scent as well as her own or Simon’s. There was something in their scents which made them uniquely them.

Something in Dawn’s had changed.

Annetta rose without speaking, crossed the floor and dragged her protesting daughter towards her with both hands. Dawn squirmed and whined, but her mother ignored her. The unfamiliar smell rolled off her like smoke: male, sexual, and full of arousal.

“Gods,” Annetta whispered. “You stupid child. What have you done?”

Dawn grinned as if she had triumphed in some way. “You said no one could want something like me,” she said. “You were wrong!”

Annetta recoiled. “You coupled with a man,” she said, her hands clenching and twitching in front of her. “You lay with him?”

“He wanted me, mama,” Dawn said, hugging herself. “You see? We don’t have to hide away. We’re not monsters. People can love us.”

Annetta stumbled back towards the table, leaning on it heavily, resisting the urge to strike the idiotic child across the face. “Oh Gods.” It was starting again, the cycle repeating. She had barely been able to survive, mother to a half-wolf cub. What if the same fate fell to her daughter? The curse would just keep going.

She could feel Dawn’s eyes on her. “Mama?”

“Who was he?” she asked, her voice shaking. “Who was this man?”

Dawn was silent.

“Tell me, child!”

“One of the travellers,” Dawn stammered. “We spent time together, mama. He’s a good man.”

“He’ll be gone by morning,” Annetta said dully. And now, the damage was already done.

“How dare you!” Dawn exclaimed. “You don’t know him!”

Annetta turned slowly, and something in her expression made her daughter back away from her, for the first time in her life. 

“You,” she said quietly, dully, “are an ignorant child. You are beautiful, young, willing and desperate. What man would say no to a girl who was so eager to prove she was desirable?”

Dawn suddenly looked younger, frightened. “He said he loved me, mama.”

“I’m sure he did, child,” Annetta said dispassionately. “From what I’ve heard, they often do.”

She took several deep, trembling breaths. If there were consequences, they would deal with them, but now, she could feel the whisper of the coming moonrise, and the sun was vanishing beyond the horizon. “Latch your room. I’ll finish in here.”

Dawn fled to her room, slamming the door behind her, and Annetta closed her eyes when she heard her daughter sobbing. While she didn’t want the girl’s heart to be broken, not by her first brush with love, she hoped the traveller would be long gone by morning.

Her own heart felt heavy as she lifted the latches into place, and brought down the shutters to seal them into their cage.

 

________________________________________

 

Simon was a grandfather for the first time.

Within months of each other, both he and Annetta became grandparents. 

For him, it was a joyous occasion, but for Annetta, it was anything but. His friend had grown thin and tired, nursing her child through her unexpected pregnancy. It was made worse by the fact that Dawn’s lover had vanished like the morning mist in the sun.

The child was born healthy and sturdy, and as she had when Dawn was young, Annetta asked for him to watch their windows and see whether the infant was cursed as both her mother and grandmother were. He watched, as asked, and felt sick with horror at the sight of Dawn’s wolf form tearing at the cage containing her very human baby.

They discussed options, possibilities, and Dawn shrank from them, clinging to her child, when they suggested that the baby be raised in the village. If she was free of the curse, why be so cruel as to keep her locked away, like them? Dawn screamed and raged, and Simon didn’t need to look at Annetta to know that she agreed with her daughter. In the end, they agreed to let her keep the child there, as long as she was always caged during the hours of Wolfstime.

When the child, little Eliza, named for her mother’s mother, was barely six months old, the world turned on them.

Simon was shaken awake by his son in the dead of the night.

“Papa, a wolf!”

Simon was wide-awake instantly. “What is it?” he asked, rolling from his bed. His wife stirred, looking after them groggily. 

Robin was white-faced and trembling. “It came into the house,” he said. “It took Peter.”

Simon felt as if the bottom had fallen out of his world. His grandson, his only grandchild, barely months old. It wouldn’t be one of the wild wolves of the forest. It couldn’t be. They never ventured neared human settlements. 

“We’ll track it,” he said, pulling on his clothes on top of his nightshirt.

It felt like the grossest betrayal of Annetta’s trust when he went to the forge and took out his own crossbow. He had bolts which were tipped with silver, just like hers. He hated himself for it, but there was always that fear there, and he knew she would understand why he had them, even if it wasn’t her or Dawn.

A hunting party had gathered already, all of them armed with bows, spears and axes.

Simon joined them, feeling numb. The tracks were clear, but the saving grace was that there was no blood to be seen. Robin’s wife had woken to see the blanket-wrapped bundle that was her son being snatched from his cradle. 

They followed the tracks to the forest, then spread out, armed with torches and weapons.

Maybe it was just misfortune that led him, but it was Simon who discovered Peter and the wolf. He recognised her instantly: Dawn. 

She was half-hidden by fallen trees and brush, and she lifted her head when he stepped on a branch. Black eyes gazed at him, then she lowered her head to the bundle that was half-hidden by her body. Simon felt sick to his stomach, and prayed the silver would weaken her enough for him to take the child without being harmed himself.

He raised the crossbow and closed his eyes as he pulled the trigger.

The wolf, Dawn, barely even whimpered as the bolt caught her in the shoulder.

Simon stumbled towards them, pushing through the brush, and stopped dead. Peter lay there, sleeping peacefully in his blankets, his small fists clenched in front of his chest and his hair damp from the attentive licks of the wolf.

Her child. She couldn’t tend her own child, so she took another. 

Simon stared at Dawn. He wondered if she could recognise him, through her wolf eyes, but he could see nothing of her. He pulled the crossbow bolt free, then scooped up his grandson in his arms. Peter stirred and started to cry

Simon hushed him desperately, staggering to his feet. If he left her there, hidden, he could tell them some lie, tell them he saw the wolf flee into the forest. He rocked his grandson against his chest and tried to think, but his head was spinning. He could see lanterns coming towards them, held high.

“That way!” he croaked, pointing in another direction. “I think it went that way!”

“There!” Someone else, Robin roared. “I see it!”

To Simon, the world slowed down and every heartbeat seemed to take a lifetime. He saw his son running past him, he turned, he cried out for Robin to stop, to leave her be. She was limping, slow, weakened by Simon’s own attack. He saw the axe blade swing, and for a split-second, he saw terror in the wolf’s eyes, and he was screaming.

The air was still and silent and sharp as crystal.

On legs that felt filled with lead, Simon walked towards his panting son. Robin was standing in a pool of steaming blood, and the wolf was dead. She couldn’t be anything but, not when her head was severed from her body.

Simon pushed the keening Peter into Robin’s arms. “Get out of here,” he said.

“Papa, it’s all right. It’s dead.”

Simon took a deep breath and swallowed hard. “Robin, take your son. Go home.” He turned and shouted at all of them. “Go home. All of you. There’s nothing more to be done here.” The damage was already done.

Robin stared at him. “Papa.”

“Send Tobias to bring my cart,” Simon said dully, kneeling down in the pool of blood. “I’ll get rid of the body.”

It took him until dawn to reach the clearing where Annetta lived. He was terrified, more than he had ever been in his life, but he owed her the truth, he needed her to know what had happened to her child.

She was standing at the door. Eliza was asleep in her arms. He knew he didn’t need to tell her the moment he saw her face. He was caked in blood, Dawn’s blood, and she would have been able to smell him coming for miles.

“Netta.”

Annetta bent stiffly and placed Eliza in her basket on the step. She walked forwards slowly towards the cart. The horse shied nervously, but she ignored it. Her face was white as snow and she looked blankly up at him.

“How?”

“She took a child,” Simon said, climbing down from the cart. He felt a thousand years old. “She took Peter.”

Annetta’s eyes closed for a moment. “He’s dead?”

Simon shook his head. “Alive,” he whispered unhappily. “She was trying to nurse him.”

Annetta swayed on the spot, and he reached out to steady her, but she shook his hand off. “Who?”

Simon ran his hand over his face. His hands were shaking so much. “I used silver, thought it would weaken her, so I could take him back. I tried to distract them. Send them in another direction. They saw her. Netta, I tried to stop them.”

“Yes,” she said slowly. “Yes. You did.” 

She put out her hand as if blind, to lean against the cart, and picked her way to the back. He had wrapped Dawn in a blanket, and when the sun had reached her, she was herself again, still and beautiful. Annetta lifted the edge of the blanket, and a low, animal sound escaped her throat.

“Netta…”

“Take Eliza inside,” she said. “Please.”

Simon stared at her helplessly as she touched her daughter’s motionless face. “Can I help?”

“Eliza,” she said again, quietly, smoothing Dawn’s blood-matted hair.

Simon nodded, picking up the basket and taking the child into the house. She was still asleep, unaware of anything untoward. Simon laid her down and went to stand by the window.

Outside, Annetta took up her shovel. She was silent, blank-faced and dry-eyed, and she started to dig into the mound where her family lay. She turned over the grass, then dug deeper and deeper, until her face was flushed and her clothes soaked with sweat.

Simon pressed his brow to the glass. Tears were pouring down his face for the child who was never his, but was closer to him than his own daughter. He watched as Annetta lifted the body down - in bits, he thought despairingly, she’s in bits - and carried first the body and then the severed head to the fresh grave.

Annetta’s movements slowed as she covered the grave and turned the grass back over. It looked as if nothing had changed.

She stabbed the shovel down into the earth and Simon saw her fold up as if all the life had been sapped from her, as she sank to her knees and wept.

 

________________________________________

 

Annetta was tired. Tired of being alone. Tired of being cursed. Tired of seeing her family dying, bloody and dismembered and laid in the earth. Her world had a sharp focus now: Eliza. The only thing she had left.

Simon still was there, on the edges of her awareness, but she couldn’t bear to look at him, not knowing that his hand and his blood had taken away her child.

It was all about Eliza, the child who - by some miracle - was untouched by the wolf blood.

She could never know what became of her mother, or what her grandfather was. It was unfair to burden a healthy, strong, happy child with that knowledge, and that was what had driven Annetta to desperate measures. 

She sat in her father’s chair, her crossbow resting in her lap, her hands habitually wrapped around the trigger and stock. The clock on the mantle ticked the time by quietly, and she closed her eyes. The fire was burning low, and it was late and dark, but she forced herself to be alert, awake.

There was no tangible change to speak of, but she knew when she was suddenly not alone anymore. Without opening her eyes, her ears and nose sense enough, she raised the crossbow to point at the intruder.

“Very good,” the male voice said gleefully. “Most don’t notice until I make myself visible.”

Annetta opened her eyes to see the man - no, not a man - hop out of thin air. His scent was like the chilly north wind, but with a tang of blood and strange spices. It was not an unpleasant scent, but his appearance was. 

Mottled, prickled skin that shifted between gold and green, flickering and iridescent, wide red eyes that looked stolen from a reptile and a sneering, curving mouth. His clothing was made from stitched hide, and from the smell of it, she could name at least four different species that had died to make it.

“Rumpelstiltskin,” she murmured. “I wondered if you would come.”

He spread his hands and bowed mockingly. “Well, here I am, dearie,” he said. “A little bird told me you were looking for a deal.”

She gazed at him for a long time, so long that he put his head to one side and narrowed his eyes, making an inquiring sound. 

“I’ve been told that you’re powerful,” she said, lowering the crossbow. 

“So it is said,” he replied, trailing one hand along the fireplace. The low glow of the flames made his face glimmer eerily. “And I only come a long way when I’m promised something… special.” He tilted his head to study her through his hair. “You promised me nothing. That is a bold request, dearie.”

She set her crossbow down. “I have nothing left,” she said finally. “I want to ask if you can do what I ask, and if you can, then we can discuss payment.”

He frowned thoughtfully at her. “Well, well. You must be truly desperate.” His mocking smile returned and he giggled. He deposited himself in the other chair and rested his fingertips on the arms. “Well, then, dearie. What is your request?”

She looked him squarely in the eye. “Can you make me safe?”

His eyebrows arched, and for a moment, he looked almost bewildered, but he hid it well. “Safe from what?”

Annetta laughed quietly, without humour. “Oh, I didn’t mean it like that,” she said. “I’m a dangerous person, Rumpelstiltskin. What I want from you is the promise that I won’t be dangerous anymore. I want to be safe.”

He leaned forwards, staring at her, and his fingers curled against the arms of the chair. “Yes,” he murmured to himself. “Yes, I can see it.” His eyes narrowed, gleaming ruddy slits. “What are you, dearie?”

Instead of speaking, she pushed up the sleeve of her blouse. The scars from that first bite, so many years earlier, were still visible, thick and deep.

He drew a breath between his teeth and slid off the chair to crouch by her. One scaled hand caught her elbow, the other her wrist, and she forced herself not to flinch as he bowed his head over the scars, inhaling the scent of them.

When he looked at her, she was surprised to see something that - for a split-second - looked like pity in his eyes.

“There’s a tale here, dearie,” he said, unfurling his hands from her arm, one finger at a time. He remained crouched there, studying her. “I know of the wolf-bloods, and the stories say they died out with Lukas of the Green forest some twenty years ago. Vanished, they say.”

“He died,” Annetta murmured. 

Rumpelstiltskin’s eyes narrowed a fraction, the information taken, added to that he was already gathering about her. “I can’t help you, dearie,” he said, unfolding and returning to the other seat. He folded one leg over the other. “Wolf-bloods are powerful beasts, and once their power is in your blood, you can’t be rid of it. Not even if you drained every drop of it out.”

Annetta’s shoulders sagged. So that made the decision for her. If she could not be safe and human, then Eliza could not stay with her. She would have to go to the village. Simon would take the girl in, she knew he would. Then she could come home, and this house of ghosts and death could be put to the torch and she could finally end the curse.

Rumpelstiltskin was still watching her, a curious look on his reptilian face. “Why do you want to be safe?” he asked, tapping two fingertips together. “You have a comfortable prison here. What would drive you to me?”

“Like you said,” she said quietly. “I’m desperate.”

He brought his hands together a fingertip at a time, studying her. “Why?”

“There’s a child.” He made a motion with one hand, indicating she should continue. “My granddaughter. She’s untainted. I don’t want her to be… cursed with the knowledge that she’s born of monsters and blood.”

“Her parents?”

Annetta drew a trembling breath. “Her father never knew of her. Her mother…”

“Gone?” he offered into the silence. Annetta nodded, pressing her lips together, blinking hard to prevent the tears from falling. He said nothing for a moment, then murmured, “It’s a curse of parents to lose their children.”

She lowered her head, unable to take such unexpected sympathy, not from a stranger. 

Rumpelstiltskin rose, pacing this way and that with little skipping steps. She could see his shadows dancing and capering on every wall, as if they were independent creatures. He finally twirled down beside her, crouching level with her. “Your blood. I need to taste it.”

Without question, she pulled her short dagger from her belt and sliced the tip of one finger neatly. She held it out to him and shivered as he uncurled his tongue and licked the bloody bead from her skin. His hand moved, covering the scars, and she trembled.

Only three people had touched her since the night her family died: Simon, Dawn and Eliza.

Now, this demonic, repellent imp, with dark magic and ancient grief dripping from his pores, was touching her, and for just a moment, she wished she could feel something. She looked at him and found his eyes on her face, even as his hand moved on the scars. She could feel the prickle of magic, and a low growl escaped from her throat unbidden.

“Now, pet, none of that,” he chastised, shaking his head and wagging a finger. “You asked if I can help. Now let me see if I can.”

She curled her hand into a fist, and her scars shifted beneath his palm, but she remained motionless otherwise. Sharp pricks of power danced along her skin, as if examining the scars for weaknesses, and his brow creased in concentration.

Finally, he released her arm and straightened up. “This is quite the puzzle,” he said, tapping his chin thoughtfully. 

“Can you do something?”

His lips twitched and she could see her blood on his teeth. “Of course I can do something,” he said. “Anyone can do something. However, not everyone can do the right kind of something.”

She groped for her crossbow and lifted it.

He raised his hands and inclined his head. “Now, my dear,” he said, “That blood has been in you a long time. As I said, it can’t be removed, but you’re strong in will and in deed. You survived old Lukas.”

“I killed old Lukas,” she corrected, her crossbow still levelled at him. “Locked him up in this very house and burned him alive.”

He clapped his hands together once, the sound sharp in the stillness. “Oh, you are a strong one, I see.” He sprawled back into the other chair. “I can make an object, a talisman if you will, that will help you. As long as you wear it, your heart will be stronger than your blood, and you will remain human.”

“It’s that simple?” 

He shook his head gravely. “There’s nothing simple about this magic,” he said. “There’s blood and power to be trifled with and that’s not easy.”

She gazed at him. “Your price is high?”

“My prices always are,” he said quietly. “I didn’t get where I am today by being generous.”

Annetta glanced towards the door of the bedroom, where Eliza was asleep in her cage. It was wrong for an infant to be caged, simply so she could sleep in safety, and it was just as wrong for a child to be kept from her blood family.

“What do you want?”

He steepled his fingers and studied her. “I haven’t decided yet if I’ll do it. You’re asking me to twist a magic that is already corrupt.”

Annetta got up from the chair and went to the table, where she laid down the crossbow. She knew little of Rumpelstiltskin, but what she did know what that he was a creature as feared and maligned as the wolf-bloods he spoke of. She pressed her fingertips to the surface of the table and released a trembling breath.

“I can offer you something,” she said without turning. He didn’t make a sound, but she knew that he was listening. She tapped the table and considered what she was saying, what she was about to offer. But, for the first time in her life, she was making the choice. “You can have me, just for one night.”

If it had not been for her heightened senses, she might have missed the tiny, sudden in-drawn breath. She heard his heartbeat pick-up, shocked, and it was strange and comforting to know that beneath the appearance, he was still a normal man.

“Not to be particular,” he said after a moment, to gather his senses, “but I don’t dally with wolves.”

She looked at the wall for a moment, then turned. “You don’t dally with anyone,” she said quietly. “You’re famous for it. Who could be brave enough to let the terrible Rumpelstiltskin near them?”

His lips twisted sourly, but he hadn’t refused, and he hadn’t immediately left, and that was something. “You walk on thin ice, dearie.”

Annetta sat back against the edge of the table. “I’m not afraid of you,” she said simply. “I’m not afraid of anything but myself anymore. I’ve seen my family slaughtered. I’ve picked up the pieces to bury them. I’ve been hurt and violated every way you can imagine. I have the blood of a monster in my veins, the thing that killed my family, the reason my daughter was murdered. You’re my last resort, and if you can’t help me, then my grandchild is given to my only human friend, and I, and this house, will burn before sunset tomorrow.” She curled her fingers around the edge of the table. “So I’m offering you one night with a woman who doesn’t fear you. It’s all I have left.”

He was silent, gazing at her, and finally asked, “Why?”

She shrugged. “We’re both lonely. We’re both hated and feared. And just once, I would like to be touched by a man who doesn’t want to hurt me.”

“I might,” he pointed out quietly.

She shook her head. “You wouldn’t,” she said. “You might look like a monster and try to act like one, but you’re not one.” She laughed quietly, sadly. “I’m probably more of a monster than you will ever be.”

He rose from the chair to approach her. She could see he was off-balance, could smell it in the air. “And you think this would be a fair price, do you, dear?” he asked. “You think I can be bought with physical pleasures?”

She met his gaze. “You’ve tasted my blood and read my scars,” she said quietly. “You know what my life has been. You know how precious my offer is.” She shocked herself with her boldness by lifting her hand and touching his cheek. His skin was cool, and she could see the suspicion and wariness in his eyes. “Please. One night of companionship, no questions asked, no regrets. It’s all I can give you. It’s everything I have.”

He searched her face with his reptile eyes. She could hear the blood rushing in him, the sound of his surprising fear and bewilderment. “You’re in earnest?”

In answer, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his. More than three decades of life, and at last, her first kiss. She drew back and looked at him apprehensively, wondering if he would be repelled and reject her.

Instead, one of his hands moved to cradled her head, and he kissed her. It was as tentative as her own, but more knowing. Unlike her, he knew how it was meant to be between a man and a woman, and he coaxed her mouth open with his tongue. She could taste the coppery flavour of her own blood and lapped at his mouth, fascinated by the new sensation.

For a long while, that seemed to be all he wanted, and she was happy with that. One hand moved on her back, across her sides, with a gentleness that she had never experienced before, and his body pressed against hers.

When he drew his lips from hers, leaving her breathless and strangely warmed, there was a hunger in his eyes that was familiar. “Your move, dearie,” he breathed. “You started this little game.”

She gazed at him, then pushed him back a step. Taking him by the hand, she led him towards the bedroom. He spared a glance for the child fast asleep in the cage by the wall, but then his eyes returned to her, as if he could scarcely believe what she was doing.

Annetta released his hand and without hesitation or shame, shed her blouse and skirt, leaving her in nothing but her shift. Rumpelstiltskin’s eyes flicked over her, but he made no move to remove his own clothing.

“Don’t be shy,” she said quietly, crossing the floor and pushing his coat back off his shoulders. It fell to the floor with a thump. He seemed much smaller, thinner, without it, and she smiled, loosening his expansive cravat. His hands alighted on her hips, and she could feel the chill of his skin through the thin fabric.

His mouth found hers again, and she made soft, approving noises as he kissed her and touched her. One hand slipped beneath her shift and she caught her breath as the fabric gradually slid upwards with his hand. Her own fingers were fumbling with his shirt. It was never something she had been required to do before, and never when so distracted by pleasant, warming sensations spreading through her body.

By the time he guided her back to the bed, she had finally managed to get rid of his shirt and his breeches were unlaced. She paused to pull the shift over her head, then turned facedown, and waited for him to do as he willed. She was surprised when he closed a hand around her shoulder and pulled her back onto her back. 

“What are you doing?” she asked breathlessly.

“I’m not an animal,” he said in a whisper and his hand trailed down the front of her body, until it slipped between her thighs. Her eyes widened as his fingers moved, making her body twitch and curl in new and wonderful ways. “Neither are you. We both know what we are. I want to see your face.”

“The monster?” she gasped, one hand twisting into the sheet below her.

He claimed her lips again, his hands moving, caressing, making her shiver. “The woman,” he replied against her lips. “The woman who looked at me.”

She reached up to take his face in her hands. The red eyes met hers and she nodded. “And the man who tamed the wolf?” His hands moved from between her thighs, and she made a stifled complain at the loss.

“I wouldn’t say tamed,” he whispered and pressed his hips to hers and she bit down on a startled cry as his body moved inside hers. It felt so strange, so unfamiliar, so painless, so pleasant compared to every other time.

Their lips came together, and she wrapped her arms around him, and they were moving together, as if it was the only thing that mattered. There was no love there, there was barely even any kind of lust, but there was desperation and loneliness and sometimes, that was enough to bring two people together.

 

 

______________________________________

 

The world was turning, and Simon was lost. Again.

Only months after her daughter was killed by the men of the village, Annetta came down to the village for the first time since her childhood. She was wearing a red cloak, and the infant Eliza was cradled at her chest in a sling.

He hadn’t dared to visit her for weeks, verging on months. The first time he visited after taking her daughter’s corpse to her, she hadn’t said a word to him. She only accepted the provisions he brought and gazed at him in silence until he departed.

It was a shock when she appeared in the forge, calm and clear-eyed, bearing a sack on her shoulder.

“Can… how can I help you?”

She rocked Eliza and nodded. “We need a home,” she said. She could tell they were being watched, even if everyone around them seemed intent on their own pursuits. “I am the widow Lukas, and my home was destroyed by fire. Can you think of anywhere close by I might be able to call home, for me and my granddaughter?”

Simon stared at her blankly. “Your home burned?”

“Such things happen,” she said quietly.

Simon struggled to gather his wits about him. “There’s a small cottage not far from here,” he said. “The owner recently passed away and it has been standing empty. Would you care to see it?”

“Thank you, sir,” she murmured, as if she had never seen him before.

They walked through the village in silence, and he had so many questions that he couldn’t even begin to pick one. She looked well. Better than she had for a long time. There was a calm about her that hadn’t been there, not since Dawn hit her teenage years.

“Before you ask, it was deliberate,” she murmured.

He glanced sidelong at her. “The house?”

“Too many ghosts there,” she said quietly. “No place for a normal baby to grow up. I didn’t want anyone else to think it could be a home.”

“You want to live here?” he asked quietly. “Are you sure?”

She looked up at him with her ancient eyes in her still-young face. “Simon, I need to be somewhere that I have at least one friend.” She almost smiled, tired and quick. “You’re the only friend I’ve ever had.”

“Netta, I’m sor…”

“Don’t apologise,” she said quickly, cutting him off. “Don’t make me regret coming here. I need a home. I need your help. I’ve been given something to help at wolfs time, but just to be safe, I need you to do what you did for me in the house.”

“Windows and doors?”

She nodded. “Anywhere that might be a way out.”

Simon nodded at once. “I’ll set to it tonight,” he said. He looked at her. “The thing for wolf’s time?”

She touched the edge of her cloak. “It was a business arrangement,” she said quietly. “A powerful man put it together for me. It contains the wolf, so I don’t turn.” Her lips twitched as if at some private joke. “Blood, sweat and tears went into it.”

“Does it work?”

She smiled quietly. “It does,” she said. “He worked a wonder. He wasn’t sure if it would be enough, but with my blood and Eliza’s in with the charms, it keeps me safe, and her safer.”

“So you’re like any other person now?” Simon asked, dazed.

“Close,” she murmured. 

It was raining lightly, and she drew her hood up, as they ventured out of the village. The cloak, whatever it was made from, seemed to repel the dirt and even the raindrops. It was the magic, he supposed. It must have cost her a great price for magic as strong as that.

The cottage lay ahead, smaller than her family’s home, but still large enough for a woman and a child. The door was unlatched and he opened it to let her enter, both of them pausing as their eyes adjusted to the darkness.

“This will do,” Annetta said softly. “This will do well.”

“You’ll be all right here?”

Annetta nodded, rocking Eliza gently. “She needs to have a normal childhood,” she said. “I want her to have friends and play games and get the chances I didn’t have. She couldn’t have that in the forest. She can have it here.” She looked at him tentatively. “Maybe, she can play with Peter?”

Simon lifted his hand to touch the sleeping baby’s downy black hair. “I’d like that,” he said with a small smile. “Our grandchildren, together.”

Annetta smiled.

 

_________________________________________

 

Annetta felt sick.

The full moon was on them, and she had heard a noise from Eliza’s room. She barely got the door open an inch before the wolf lunged at it, snarling and slavering. Nothing had come in, which meant only one thing: little Eliza was tainted, just as she was.

She pulled the door shut, sinking to sit against it, the cloak pooling like blood around her.

She could hear Eliza, the wolf, clawing at the wood. It was secure. Simon had made sure the house would be strong enough to hold her if she changed herself, and it was certainly enough to contain a stripling of a teenager in the first change.

Her head was sinning, but she tried to remember her own first change. It wasn’t immediately after the bite. It took time. She knew that because there had been so many months of torment before she changed. He had always enjoyed hunting her, when she was human and he was wolf, so there had to be at least six months. And then, she was…

She closed her eyes, pressing her head back against the door.

Then, she was pregnant. Of course. She matured. 

And now, Eliza was on the cusp of maturity.

Annetta knocked her head back against the door with a small moan. It was starting all over again, everything she thought that was finished. Eliza had no idea of where she came from, or what was in her blood. To tell her now, to ruin her, would be too much. Her hands bunched in the cloak and she looked down. The cloak.

It wasn’t a quick process, she knew. Rumpelstiltskin had been gone by sunrise after their night together, the bed empty. A spidery note on the table told her he would do his utmost, but he could make no promises. Weeks later, he returned, briefly, and took blood from both her and the child. 

Almost four months went by before the cloak arrived, bound in brown paper and twine, and for the first time in more than twenty years, she could watch the full moon rise without fear.

In Eliza’s room, the wolf was howling at being trapped. How she could explain things to Eliza in the morning, she didn’t know. Annette pressed her fingers into her ears and closed her eyes and tried to wish it was all just a nightmare.

In the end, Eliza made it easier. Her room was a disaster area, so she didn’t notice that the furniture had been knocked over and that the floor was scratched and clawed. She complained all day of a headache, so Annetta topped up her drink with a powerful sleeping draught.

The wolf slept silently through the night.

The third night, Annetta feigned fever, and insisted that Eliza sleep tucked in her cloak beside her. As much as the girl huffed and puffed in indignation, she still nestled close and went to sleep almost at once. The wolf was kept at bay for the night.

A message was already on its way to Rumpelstiltskin.

He came within three days, arriving silently in the night as he had on their first encounter.

Annetta was sitting broodingly in front of the fire when he was suddenly in the other chair, his fingers resting lightly on the arms. She offered him a brief, drawn smile. “I wondered if you would come,” she said quietly.

“It’s been some time,” he agreed, his eyes running over her. “You’ve grown older.”

She rubbed her tired eyes. “You haven’t,” she murmured.

He spread his hands with a self-deprecating smile. “The benefits of being a monster.” He glanced towards the closed door of the bedroom. “The child?”

“Wolf-blood,” Annetta said, her voice choked with tiredness. “She just matured.”

Rumpelstiltskin nodded slowly. “And you want another cloak?”

“Is it possible?” she asked, her voice trembling. “I know it took so much last time. I didn’t want to ask again, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

His expression was unreadable by the firelight, and the very fact he showed nothing told her what the answer was.

“It’s impossible?” she said quietly.

“It took a complex set of charms to build the cloak,” he replied quietly. “Some of the ingredients were exceptionally rare. If they were rare then, I fear they are close to extinct now.”

Annetta covered her face with her hands, trying desperately not to let herself weep. She heard the floorboard creak under his feet as he rose and then he laid his hand on top of her head, so lightly she could barely feel it, a wordless benediction. 

“The cloak was bound to both of you,” he said quietly. “Your blood and hers.”

She lowered her hands to look up at him. “Did you know? That she was wolf-blood?”

His red eyes regarded her solemnly. “I couldn’t be sure that she wasn’t. The cloak will work for her as it has for you.”

Annetta shook her head. “I can’t be a wolf,” she whispered. “Not without it.”

With the fire behind him, his features were barely visible, but she could see the way his mouth turned up just a little. “Have you gone without the cloak during the moon?” he asked, curling his hand. One of her hairs was tangled around his fingers. “Have you not seen the little gift I bound into it?”

Annetta stared at him in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

One finger traced her cheek. “A kindness for a kindness,” he murmured. “The longer you use the cloak, the stronger your human side becomes. I can’t promise it will ever be vanquished completely, but you will be aware and yourself, even if your form is not.”

She stared at him, uncomprehending. “Why?”

He stepped back and offered her a gallant little bow. “You’re quite aware of why,” he said. “And it’s all that I can do.”

Annetta rose, stiff-legged, and pulled him into an awkward hug. He patted her shoulder carefully, then stepped back with that little laugh of his.

“Of course, you can tell no one of this.”

She smiled faintly. “We all have our masks to maintain,” she agreed.

“Quite so, quite so.” He bowed extravagantly and vanished in a wisp of smoke.

Annetta released a breath and drew her hands down the fabric of the cloak. She undid the clasp at her throat. It was time for Eliza to receive a present.

 

___________________________________

 

“We have to keep them apart.”

Simon rubbed his forehead. “Netta, I know you want to keep them both safe, but if you tell a teenager not to do something, then they will go straight out and do it.” They were in his house, and he was sitting at the table as Annetta paced back and forth across the floor. “Even if you lock them in the house and forbid them, they’ll find a way.”

“I saw her kiss him under the trees, when she thought I wasn’t looking,” Annetta snarled, whirling around on him. “Simon, this can’t go on. You know what she is. If they get any closer, and they…” She stopped at the window, her hands rubbing her temples. “I can’t face another Dawn.”

Simon got up from his chair slowly. His joints were paining him more and more. He picked his way across the floor to lay his hands on her shoulders. “Eliza is nothing like Dawn,” he said quietly. “She’s much more like you.”

“Dawn slept with that man to prove someone could want her,” Annetta said in a broken whisper, “but I think Eliza may genuinely care for Peter.” She turned to look up at him. “If you can, try to stop him coming to her?”

“They were friends for years before the change,” Simon reminded her quietly. “It’ll seem strange if we try to stop them seeing each other now.”

“Can’t you find him a girl?” Annetta pleaded. “I know it’ll break Eliza’s heart now, but it would be better for them both in the long run. You know they can’t possibly have a future together, not with her condition.”

Simon squeezed her shoulders. “I’ll talk to him,” he promised. “But they’re becoming adults, and you know how adults react to instructions they don’t like.”

Annetta nodded grimly. “I have trouble enough making her wear the damned cloak,” she said, looking out into the street. “I wish I could find out how she gets out of her room, but she’s a sly little thing. I’ve checked the windows, the walls, the door. I can’t work out how she’s doing it. It was another half-dozen sheep last night.”

Simon was silent for a moment.

“What is it?” Annetta asked. “Your heart just started racing.”

“There’s talk of a hunting party,” he said slowly.

She shied back. “And you didn’t think to tell me until now?” she demanded. “After what happened last time?”

“It’s only talk,” he tried to soothe her, but she backed away from him, her hands raised as if to ward him off. “If you can get her to stay indoors, make sure that she wears the cloak, there’ll be nothing to worry about.”

“Like you’ll be able to keep your grandson away from my granddaughter?” she demanded, pacing again. She swore under her breath, walking back and forth across the floor. “I should take her away.”

“Netta,” Simon said quietly, “take a look in the mirror. You’re too old to drag a stubborn girl halfway across the Kingdoms. You need to tell her.”

Annetta shook her head fiercely. “No. I’ve lived with this my whole life. It does nothing but destroy everything it touches. I don’t want her to see herself the way I see myself.” She took a breath. “The cloak keeps it at bay. The cloak is all she needs.”

“You know she’ll find out sooner or later,” Simon said quietly. He couldn’t help wonder what Annetta meant by how she saw herself. All he could see when he looked at her was strength and dignity born out of horror.

“The later the better,” Annetta said quietly. “Speak to Peter. Lie to him if you have to. Just keep them apart.”

He didn’t have the heart to fight with her anymore about it, so he nodded.

He just knew it wouldn’t be enough.

 

_______________________________________

 

The ice on her boots was red.

There was blood everywhere: on her hands, on her clothes, on her granddaughter.

Annetta watched as Eliza was pulled away by Mary. 

The girl reminded her a lot of Simon, scared half out of her wits, but loyal. Maybe it was a bad thing they were fleeing together, maybe it would be better now that Eliza knew. They were good girls, both of them, brave and good, and they didn’t need to face the wrath of the torch-wielding mob.

At least, she thought desperately, sadly, Eliza lived. Her little Red, in her hood. It was more of a chance than Dawn ever had.

Annetta lowered the crossbow and made her way across the snow. Chains hung limp around the tree and she could see the fragments of the body of Simon’s grandson. In bits. She stumbled back a step, another, falling to sit on the bloody snow, remembering her brothers, her father. All in bits, at the fang and claw of a wolf.

She could have stopped it, this time. She could have.

She was still sitting there, cradling her crossbow and covered in blood, when the mob reached them. She looked up, but there wasn’t a word she could say to explain, to excuse, to distract them away from the girls. 

“What was that?” 

She recognised the voice. Robin. Simon’s boy. She tried to stand, but her legs gave out beneath her and she knelt in the snow. Let her be punished for the crimes of her line. She should have told Eliza, Red. The girl should have known. “It’s Peter.”

“No,” Robin said shaking his head. “Peter’s at home. He’s at home.”

Annetta lowered her head, unable to look at him. He killed her girl and now, the girl’s daughter killed his boy. If it wasn’t so cruel, it was almost poetic in its horror.

She knew the moment he believed, the moment he recognised the bloody scraps of clothing. She knew because he started to scream. It wasn’t the bellow of an angry man, but the scream of pure grief.

More came, more torches, more whispers. The wolf had escaped again, but she heard the whispers of vengeance, and she prayed that Red would never remove her cloak or set foot in these parts again. 

Peter’s remains were gathered up by some of the older men, those who had seen enough horrors to face it, and she watched numbly, as they were placed into a wooden box, too small for a whole man, but enough for Peter.

“Widow Lukas.” One of the town’s men touched her shoulder. “You should be indoors. It’s a cold night.”

She stared at him as if she could not understand him. She wondered if it was too late to go back to her cottage and close herself in and let it burn. Eliza was gone, and all she had left was Simon, and when he learned what had happened, she would truly have nothing. 

It started to snow again, swirling around her, but she stayed, watching as the stains were covered over by flakes. The crowd drifted away and she sat in the darkness, illuminated only by the snow-blurred face of the full moon.

Time seemed to pass slowly, but it was still dark when she saw a lantern in the gloom. 

The scent reached her before he came into sight.

Simon.

She covered her face with her hands. 

Simon.

“Netta?” he asked quietly, standing across the clearing from her.

She raised her head, tears frozen on her cheeks. “Simon, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He limped to her side, leaning heavily on his walking stick, and sat down beside her, both of them looking at the bloody snow.

The wind whined around them.

“Do you think it hurt?” he asked, his voice shaking. “Would she have hurt him?”

Annetta shook her head. “Wolves kill quickly,” she whispered. “He would have been gone in an instant.” She looked at him. “Why would he believe he was the wolf? Why would he let her chain him? I don’t understand.”

“Because he was stolen by one,” Simon replied sadly. “No one ever forgot that. He was called the Wolfboy by his friends. He must have believed it.”

“But to let her chain him?” She shook her head. “He should have run.” She stifled a small, desperate sob. “I should have told her. He would still be alive and she would still be here, if I had only told her.”

Simon’s gloved hand found hers.

“Did she get away?”

Annetta nodded slowly. “She has a friend,” she said, her voice shaking. “Someone to be there for her, like you were for me.”

He squeezed her hand through the glove. “I still am.”

She looked at him, then leaned into him, as she had years before, and together, they watched the snow fall on the blood.


End file.
